smashed, wrecked, gone | Indy

[Parker McCormick]

2nd of February 1974
11:17 am
Hogwarts Quidditch pitch

Stadium.

It had been the only word on a too-large piece of parchment and though Parker had recognised Indy's handwriting immediately, the note had still left him scratching its head.

His mother's timing had secured him a birthday on the Saturday, but his heart's longing had transformed his good fortune into a spot of bad luck. It was exactly one week before the Hogsmeade weekend so instead of celebrating his eighteenth in Xanthe's company, he was stuck at the castle without her. Since he spent most of his Saturdays with her brother he'd assumed that this one would be no different. Though he knew the Auror had been a handy beater in his day, they so rarely discussed Quidditch that the one-word instruction came as a complete surprise.

Still, Parker knew better than to doubt the process. There was probably a really good reason why Indy wanted him to head down to the pitch on what was likely to become a rainy Saturday and so, after swinging past his dorm to pick up his broom, the boy stole across the grounds and towards the pitch.

It was a cold day and with the cloud cover thickening above the grounds, he guessed it would only get colder. February rain was often messy and never warm, leaving the recently frozen earth slippery underfoot. Parker would have much preferred to be bundled up in front of a fire or sprawled atop some expensive imported bedding, but it was not to be. At least he had some company. With both Xanthe and Will gone, his last birthday at Hogwarts would have been a very lonely one if his professor hadn't taken an interest.

The man in question was already in the air, seemingly unaware of Parker's entrance as he sliced the sky. Parker hesitated for a second before he mounted his own broom, trying his best to shake some life into his otherwise frozen limbs before he kicked off.

"Why're we meeting out here?" he called, the uncertain smile turning his personable face boyish.

[Indigo Amberghast]

"Why're we meeting out here?"

His eyes narrowed.

“Why were you sorted into Hufflepuff?”

Then they narrowed some more.

“Your parents, were they cousins?”

Maybe with the benefit of some emotional maturity — though the boy was dating Xanthe Amberghast — he might be able to recognise the glint of something, deep, deep, deep down in his gaze, not quite amusement or even really tangible, but then what serious words did he ever really need to say?

They both knew, tragic though it was, that Parker McCormick had no better place to warm himself than the same long, cold, dark shadow that spared Indigo the sin of a hideous heart.

Far off in the distance the furious whistling of a Bludger cutting through the air grew undeniably closer, signalling the only warning Parker would get. Drowned out by this first sound — the Bludger close enough now to see blurring through the sky, aimed right toward his chest — three more Bludgers began their approach, to his left, to his right, to his rear.

“No more kiddie shit, okay?” he said, as if that were not already true and brutally so, that for all his failings as a Professor — none of which he denied or cared about in the slightest — no one could ever accuse him, and perhaps to a fault he subconsciously desired, of not treating these children like they deserved to be treated — like adults. There were already more than enough Timothy Winchesters in the world, treating them like helpless little babies.

“If you want to graduate, spend a few years being mediocre in a mediocre job, pop out a few ghastly little children, and then begin so intimate a relationship with your settee that you start to resemble it’s dimensions then of course, Parker, by all means—”

Sudden and suffocating was the proximity of the Bludger’s sound. Even Indigo thought it seemed a little too angry with him, poor little Parker McCormick.

“You do that. But otherwise everything worth doing is going to hurt, far too much — and that’s if it doesn’t kill you.”

[Parker McCormick]

“Why were you sorted into Hufflepuff?”

It was not the question Parker had been expecting.

Professor Indigo Amberghast had a way of wrapping his riddles in a tangle of carefully chosen words, making them hard work and nearly impossible to solve. There was no telling about whether he even required an answer, yet a perfectly serviceable response drifted to the forefront of the boy's mind anyway.

"Because I look fabulous in yellow, and the prettiest girls flock to us?"

“Your parents, were they cousins?”

The second question was a lot more pointed and Parker actually felt a small jolt as he stared back at the man.

It was a joke - it had to be. For all of his pokes and jabs, the man ahead of him was never cruel. The fact that Parker's family was a sore spot in any conversation wasn't his fault either, it was just one of those unfortunate plights that left most men shaking their fists at the heaven, insisting the powers that be tell them why.

The shaky breath did a lot to steady him and the stillness helped. The whistle of an approaching bludger made the hair on his arms stand upright and Parker realised that despite having his wand, he was still terrified of the unforgiving missile.

“No more kiddie shit, okay?” Indy was saying and yet Parker had never felt more like a child. He was the birthday boy who'd shown up at his own party with eyes full of stars, hopelessly excited about the cake and gifts, only to be presented with a trial by fire instead. Parker wasn't twelve anymore but he felt it, especially as he glanced down at his wand hand and noticed himself shaking.

One obstacle at the time.

"Flipendo!"

The bludger reared back sharply and Parker's whole body flooded with the sweet, sweet nectar of immediate relief. He wasn't out of danger yet, though; the stupid ball had magic all of its own and it would come back if it wasn't taken out of action completely.

"Waddiwassi!" came next as Parker directed the cowed bludger towards the stands.

The shrill whistle did not cease, though. For a moment he thought the bludger had changed direction yet again, but upon glancing to his other side, Parker noticed not one but three shadows moving in on them.

"I thought you'd want me to get a nice job, earn some money..."

-- make Xanthe happy --

Isn't that what he'd been preparing for for seven years? There was a role for him out there somewhere and even though he still didn't know what it was, he doubted it would leave him so completely bored that he'd meld with his sofa.

There was no time to consider asking any more than that, though. The whistle reached an ear-splitting frequency and Parker raised his wand once more, ready for round two.

[Indigo Amberghast]

"Because I look fabulous in yellow, and the prettiest girls flock to us?"

Indigo stared a hole straight through him, his dark eyes attempting to burn themselves out of existence.

“So — yes, then. Cousins.”

And yet a joke, as disgusting and unenviable as the reality of it was, still was not so startling or appalling or stomach-turning as the reality of what Parker McCormick represented to them, both of them, the soulless subhumans who conspired in their narcissistic selfishness to deprive him of what he needed most and yet reared him to believe he could not live without, them and their awful brood.

How dark and desperate were those days that he looked to the shadows for light?

The worst thing was, he knew the answer. He could see the answer. The drip, drip, drip of that bleeding heart and the gush of red spilt uselessly everywhere, oozing itself cold and unfeeling to sprawl blindingly across his tale of woe — stuck there, choked up and coagulated, leaving behind only what was too deep and too broken for their eyes to see.

"I thought you'd want me to get a nice job, earn some money..."

“Then what?” he asked, his tone cool and calm even as an approaching Bludger cut screaming through the air.

“What is the point?”

[Parker McCormick]

The next pair of questions almost made him do a double take and if he didn't have three more Bludgers to deal with, Parker would have surely stared at the professor in earnest.

“Then what?”

Two words only, but in those syllables lay Parker's lack of planning bare for all to see. Oh, he had it all worked out up to the point of graduation, everything from how much to study for his perfect grades to which career would suit him best. All of this had been mulled over and chewed on, spat out and studied until he'd just about taken all the flavour out of it. Still, there'd been no deeper meaning ot his self reflection, no difficult questions that led him to anything more than a practical choice with no real heart in it.

The second Bludger descended and though the boy's mind was skipping in all direction, he was ready with his wand.

"Reducto!"

Chunks of iron flew in all direction and Parker took evasive action, desperate to avoid the largest pieces of shrapnel catapulted in his direction. One very sharp piece nicked his glove but the leather kept the edge well away from soft skin.

If only it had been that easy to dodge the last question.

“What is the point?”

His only answer seemed childish but he somehow knew silence wasn't an option here.

"I thought life was the point? Trying to be happy, loving each other and... Depulso!"

The Bludger exploded into a shower of sparks and debris, though this time it was far away and none of it made a mark. There was yet another whistle and Parker spun around on his broom, his weight pulling him every which way as he tried his best to hang on while also hiding behind his wand, the thought of getting a Bludger to the face on his birthday almost too much to bear.

His last turn revealed the missile, but it was too late. The ball was mere inches from his face and he barely had time to close his wand before it closed the last of the space.

Parker braced himself.

The Bludger slammed into his shoulder with no force at all, giving him the gentlest of taps on the arm before simply dropping back to the ground.

Despite himself and the man in his company, tiny let out a pitiful gasp as he realised that all of his bones were still intact.

[Indigo Amberghast]

"Trying to be happy, loving each other and..."

In anticipation of how nauseatingly sentimental the boy could be — an effect not lessened by the arbitrary anniversary that seemed so special to so many of them — he had shrewdly skipped lunch.

“Wrong. So wrong.”

For a fleeting, forgotten fraction of a moment he did wish his stomach was as weak as so often he saw in them, that the projectile foulness might articulate to Parker what there was not cruelty enough in him to volunteer verbally, no pressure applied behind the rest and recline of his talons, almost — almost, settle down — fatherly as they curled, comforting, around his shoulder—

All of which was to say — or not say, as he was so accustomed — that everyone tried to be happy, or at least whatever approximation of happiness was allowed by their madness or their malady. It was but a selfish impulse, just like love. That was all.

Suddenly, Parker’s deranged mind always taking the conversation down such dark corridors, he realised it wasn’t enough, and that in anticipation of the-little-puppy-that-could’s birthday he should have been skipping lunch all week.

As the boy dodged and dived through the flurry of Bludgers, none of which would bruise anything but Parker’s overly modest ego, Indigo’s dark eyes narrowed but he saw no pleading, no glassiness, no prickling tears, nothing at all to betray the boy but the small gasp he had not meant to let slip from him. Perhaps it was the man letting slip the boy.

Tough love was to those cursed with no love and no real understanding a cruel and contradictory thing. Even then, in that precise moment, without thinking of them, without any kind of intentional recall, he knew that Parker McCormick’s parents did not care about him or his birthday; did not give a shit about anything but their ugly selves.

Like any great injustice — but he couldn’t deny it felt somehow worse — it sunk itself deep, scratching and clawing, burning away at him in an undeniable place.

“And you know that if people don’t make you happy, don’t love you — and, the truth is, even if they do — you don’t owe them anything, Parker.”

His jaw set, sharp lines hardening, the contradiction between spoken and unspoken burning strange and inevitable like wildfire in the swirling intensity of his eyes.

“They’re not even worth the fuck you.”